WEST Indies Alumina Company (Windalco) yesterday confirmed that five senior managers would be leaving the company on early retirement, but denied allegations of a ‘management shake-up’ at the company.

“It is customary, from time to time, for employees to opt to go on early retirement and we are not exempted from that reality,” a statement from the bauxite company said yesterday.

“With regards to further changes in the organisation, various companies occasionally undergo organisational changes and restructuring to maintain their competitive edge in the global market place, and WINDALCO is not an exception to those developments that we view as opportunities to introduce new skills and techniques to the organisation.”

The five retirees are former CEO Patrick McIntosh; operations manager Earl Patterson; production managers Michael McCatty and Lloyd Lewis and director of human resources, Harry Foster, who the company said was asked to continue working despite electing to retire early.

McIntosh was replaced on July 1 by Michael Collins, former managing director of Aughinish Alumina in Ireland, a subsidiary of Windalco’s parent company Glencore. Collins worked in Jamaica before, as an accounts manager for Alcan Jamaica Ltd, which changed hands to WINDALCO in 2001.

Yesterday, National Worker’s Union (NWU) vice president Norman DaCosta described the move by Windalco parent company, Glencore, as “not surprising”, since, he said it was an open secret that the Swiss-based company was not pleased with its operations in Jamaica.

“The local Windalco management, to be quite frank, has not been particularly effective in controlling those factors over which they have direct control. This situation has resulted in things like excess waste, and repeated missed production targets, so much so, that during the course of last year the workers didn’t earn a cent from the productivity plan because of missed targets,” DaCosta told the Observer yesterday.

In addition, he charged that poor management has threatened the future of the Jamaican operations in Kirkvine and Ewarton as well as the port operations in Old Harbour, and affected the general morale of the workers.

“We have seen a reluctance on the part of the parent company, Glencore, to commit additional capital investment needed to upgrade the facilities, and we see a link between performance and that reluctance on their part. Another thing is, if you’re missing production targets, workers will not be earning the productivity incentives. This makes for a very unhappy worker, so that if the plant is performing, he is assured of his quarterly earnings,” he added.